Adam N. Joinson

Looking at, looking up or keeping up with people?: motives and use of facebook

This paper investigates the uses of social networking site Facebook, and the gratifications users derive from those uses. In the first study, 137 users generated words or phrases to describe how they used Facebook, and what they enjoyed about their use. These phrases were coded into 46 items which were completed by 241 Facebook users in Study 2. Factor analysis identified seven unique uses and gratifications: social connection, shared identities, content, social investigation, social network surfing and status updating. User demographics, site visit patterns and the use of privacy settings were associated with different uses and gratifications.

The Rise of Consumer Health Wearables: Promises and Barriers

Lukasz Piwek and colleagues consider whether wearable technology can become a valuable asset for health care.

Self-esteem, interpersonal risk and preference for e-mail to face-to-face communication

The media choices made by high and low self-esteem Internet users were studied using web-based methodology (n = 265). Participants were asked to rank four media (face-to-face, e-mail, letter, and telephone) in order of preference across four different communication scenarios designed to pose an interpersonal risk. The level of interpersonal risk posed by two of the scenarios (asking for a pay rise and asking for a date) were also experimentally manipulated by randomly allocating participants to a 25%, 50%, or 75% chance of rejection. Low self-esteem users (LSE) showed a significant preference toward e-mail communication compared to high self-esteem users (HSE). This pattern was reversed for face-to-face preferences. Similarly, a greater chance of rejection in a scenario led to e-mail being preferred to face-to-face communication. The results are discussed in light of both the strategic use of different media and the motivated Internet user.

Knowing me, knowing you: Reciprocal self-disclosure in Internet-based surveys.

Candid self-disclosure is desirable for many behavioral science studies. Although there is ample evidence that self-disclosure is increased when people communicate or participate in research over the Internet, few studies have looked at ways of increasing this effect. In the present pilot study, participants were randomly allocated to either a condition in which they received self-disclosing information about the experimenter (and then moved on to the study) or were directed straight to the study. Participants completed six open response questions on the Internet. Participants who received the experimenter disclosure divulged a significantly higher quantity of information about themselves, but their answers were not scored as significantly more revealing or intimate than those participants who did not receive the experimenter disclosure. Implications for conducting research over the Internet are discussed.

Personalization, authentication and self-disclosure in self-administered Internet surveys

Abstract Two studies are presented that examine disclosure of sensitive information and personalization in Internet-based surveys. In the first study, the impact of a personalized salutation on two forms of non-disclosure to a sensitive personal question (salary level) is tested. The results revealed that a personalized salutation tends to increase levels of active non-disclosure (measured through use of an ‘I prefer not to answer’ option), but not passive non-disclosure (where the respondent selects no option). In the second study, participants are directed to the study via either a personalized URL (which incorporated an encoded identifier not obvious as such to the responder) or via a secure log-on page that required the user to type in identifying information. Non-disclosure to a sensitive question (salary) was significantly higher when participants went through a log-on procedure. We suggest that this pattern of non-disclosure to sensitive questions reflects increases in identifiability when a personalized salutation or log-on procedure is used. We further suggest that the provision of an active non-disclosure option to a sensitive question is particularly appropriate in contexts in which anonymity may be compromised, since it enables participants to both protect their privacy and respond appropriately to the survey.

Privacy, Social Network Sites, and Social Relations

With the growth of the Internet comes a growth in a ubiquitous networked society. Common Web 2.0 applications include a rapidly growing trend for social network sites. Social network sites typically converged different relationship types into one group of “friends.” However, with such vast interconnectivity, convergence of relationships, and information sharing by individual users comes an increased risk of privacy violations. We asked a small sample of participants to discuss what friendship and privacy meant to them and to give examples of a privacy violation they had experienced. A thematic analysis was conducted on the interviews to determine the issues discussed by the participants. Many participants experienced privacy issues using the social network site Facebook. The results are presented here and discussed in relation to online privacy concerns, notably social network site privacy concerns and managing such information.

Personalized salutation, power of sender and response rates to Web-based surveys

Three studies were conducted to examine the effect of personalized salutation and sender power on signing up to an online survey panel, and subsequent survey response rates. In the first study, significantly more people joined a panel if addressed by a personalized salutation. In Study 2, this effect was replicated using an invitation to leave a second panel. In the final study, a significant salutation effect was found when power of the sender was high, and not when power of the sender was neutral. It is argued that for this sample, power of audience and participant identifiability linked to create a compliance-based motivation to join and maintain membership of an online panel. Implications for the maintenance of online panels, survey response rates, and the collection of sensitive personal information, are discussed.

Disinhibition and the Internet

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on evidence of disinhibition online in two main areas—communication and information seeking. Disinhibition is one of the few widely reported and noted media effects of online interaction. However, despite the evidence that disinhibition occurs in a number of different contexts online, including computer-mediated communication (CMC), Web-logs and submission of Web forms, most approaches to understanding the phenomenon confine themselves to considering the impact of a single factor anonymity. A large body of experimental and anecdotal evidence suggests that CMC and general Internet-based behavior can be characterized as containing high levels of self-disclosure. Rheingold claims that new, meaningful relationships can be formed in cyberspace because of, not despite, its limitations. He further argues that the medium will, by its nature, be a place where people often end up revealing themselves far more intimately than they would be inclined to do without the intermediation of screens and pseudonyms.

From spaces to places: emerging contexts in mobile privacy

Mobile privacy concerns are central to Ubicomp and yet remain poorly understood. We advocate a diversified approach, enabling the cross-interpretation of data from complementary methods. However, mobility imposes a number of limitations on the methods that can be effectively employed. We discuss how we addressed this problem in an empirical study of mobile social networking. We report on how, by combining a variation of experience sampling and contextual interviews, we have started focusing on a notion of context in relation to privacy, which is subjectively defined by emerging socio-cultural knowledge, functions, relations and rules. With reference to Gieryns sociological work, we call this place, as opposed to a notion of context that is objectively defined by physical and factual elements, which we call space. We propose that the former better describes the context for mobile privacy.

Every Post You Make, Every Pic You Take, I'll Be Watching You: Behind Social Spheres on Facebook

The problem of conflicting social spheres occurs when communications are simultaneously visible to multiple audiences within a social network, as commonly occurs on social network sites (SNS). In this environment users may suffer from social anxiety as they worry that communications seen as negative by certain audiences may be shared with those same groups. This issue rests on four assumptions: (1) that a social network encompasses a variety of social spheres, (2) that users believe they are being watched by these spheres, (3) that the social spheres differ in the norms, standards and expectations they hold about an individual and (4) that users largely do not employ measures to separate communications to different spheres. The present research aims to provide evidence for these assumptions. Self-discrepancy theory (SDT) [1] is used as a lens to view social norms, and as a novel way of understanding social spheres. Moreover, the research investigates any link between the magnitude of ought self-discrepancies and the social anxiety felt between relational dyads. An online survey with 313 participants offers strong support for these assumptions and provides evidence of a significant association between the magnitude of negative ought-other discrepancies and anxiety within dyads. This evidence strengthens the argument that SNS can cause anxiety and tension in social relations.